Mohinga

The main ingredients of mohinga are gram flour and/or crushed toasted rice, garlic, shallots or onions, lemongrass, ginger, fish paste, fish sauce, and catfish (or other types of fishes, such as Mrigal carp). The ingredients are combined in a rich broth, which is cooked and kept on the boil.{{Cite web|last=Bush|first=Austin|title=10 foods to try in Myanmar -- from tea leaf salad to Shan-style rice|url=https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/myanmar-foods-try/index.html|access-date=2020-05-31|website=CNN|date=12 July 2017 |language=en|archive-date=2020-08-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804130226/https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/myanmar-foods-try/index.html|url-status=live}} Mohinga is served with rice vermicelli, dressed and garnished with fish sauce, a squeeze of lime, crisp fried onions, coriander, spring onions, crushed dried chillis, and, as optional toppings, deep-fried Burmese fritters such as split chickpeas, urad dal, gourd, sliced pieces of youtiao, as well as boiled egg and fried ngapi fish cake.{{Cite news|date=2013-08-27|title=Mohinga: Myanmar's National Dish|language=en-US|work=The Slow Road Travel Blog|url=https://www.butterfield.com/blog/2013/08/27/mohinga-myanmars-national-dish/|access-date=2018-07-09|archive-date=2018-07-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180710010316/https://www.butterfield.com/blog/2013/08/27/mohinga-myanmars-national-dish/|url-status=live}} Mohinga is eaten with Chinese soup spoons, which are known as mohinga zun ({{Lit|mohinga spoons}}) in Burmese.

Mohinga is a very common breakfast dish in Myanmar, and available as an "all-day breakfast" in many towns and cities.{{Cite web|date=2017-12-17|title=The best thing I ate in 2017|url=http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/17/best-thing-i-ate-in-2017-jamie-oliver-nadiya-hussain|access-date=2021-09-06|website=the Guardian|language=en|archive-date=2021-07-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210710222523/https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/17/best-thing-i-ate-in-2017-jamie-oliver-nadiya-hussain|url-status=live}} Mohinga can be served as a formal dish made from scratch as well as from a ready-made powder used for making the broth. Mohinga used to be available only early in the morning and at street pwès (open air stage performances), zat pwès (open air dance performances) or theatres at night. Street hawkers often sell mohinga, with some carrying the soup cauldron on a stove on one side of a shoulder pole, with rice vermicelli and other ingredients, along with bowls and spoons, on the other. Trishaw peddlers began to appear in the 1960s and some of them set up pavement stalls making mohinga available all day.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}}

File:Mandalay trishaw peddler.jpg|A mohinga trishaw peddler in Mandalay will stop for customers.

File:Mohinga stall, Mandalay, Myanmar.JPG|Mohinga is available all day from pavement stalls such as this in Mandalay.

File:Mohinga.jpg|Ready-made packages containing powder to cook mohinga soup is also available.

File:IMG mohinga0948.JPG|Mohinga streethawker in Mandalay

The origins of mohinga are difficult to pinpoint in the absence of extant records.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2016-04-05|title=မုန့်ဟင်းခါး အကြောင်း သိကောင်းစရာ|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/%e1%80%99%e1%80%af%e1%80%94%e1%80%b9%e1%82%94%e1%80%9f%e1%80%84%e1%80%b9%e1%80%b8%e1%80%81%e1%80%ab%e1%80%b8-%e1%80%a1%e1%80%b1%e1%81%be%e1%80%80%e1%80%ac%e1%80%84%e1%80%b9%e1%80%b8-%e1%80%9e%e1%80%ad/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180109093622/http://myfoodmyanmar.com/%E1%80%99%E1%80%AF%E1%80%94%E1%80%B9%E1%82%94%E1%80%9F%E1%80%84%E1%80%B9%E1%80%B8%E1%80%81%E1%80%AB%E1%80%B8-%E1%80%A1%E1%80%B1%E1%81%BE%E1%80%80%E1%80%AC%E1%80%84%E1%80%B9%E1%80%B8-%E1%80%9E%E1%80%AD|archive-date=2018-01-09|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=my}} Food processing tools used to ferment rice dating to the Pyu city-states have been discovered, showing that the tradition of making rice vermicelli, the key starch used in mohinga, has a long history. The earliest reference to mohinga dates to the Konbaung dynasty, in the poet U Ponnya's alinga verse poem. Burmese history historian Khin Maung Nyunt has concluded that during pre-colonial times, mohinga was likely a commoner's dish, as a formal recipe for mohinga has not been found in royal records or cookbooks.

During the latter half of Bagyidaw's reign, a poet by the name of U Min wrote about mohinga using the phrase "mont di" (မုန့်တီ). While mont di now commonly refers to another type of rice vermicelli dishes, a small minority continue to use "mont ti" in reference to mohinga. Various regions in the country call mohinga "mont" (မုန့်) or "mont hin" (မုန့်ဟင်း).

There are different regional varieties of mohinga throughout Myanmar, depending on the availability of ingredients and culinary preferences. For example, Rakhine mohinga has more fish paste and less soup. The most commonly prepared version comes from Lower Myanmar, where fresh fish is more readily available. These varieties of mohinga originate from the Irrawaddy delta, which are often dubbed tawchet mohinga ({{Lit|rural style mohinga}}).{{Cite web|last=Thinn Thiri San|date=2019-07-24|title=မုန့်ဟင်းခါး နှင့် မြန်မာလူမျိုး|url=https://yangon.style/item_cat/read-bread/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111021128/https://yangon.style/item_cat/read-bread/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=Yangon Style|language=my}} Several well-known mohinga shops in Yangon serve Irrawaddy delta-style mohinga, including Myaungmya Daw Cho and Bogalay Daw Nyo.{{Cite web|last=ငြိမ်းအိအိထွေး|date=2018-08-29|title=ရန်ကုန်မြို့က နာမည်ကျော် မုန့်ဟင်းခါးဆိုင် ၁ဝ ဆိုင်|url=https://myanmar.mmtimes.com/restaurant-reviews/114715.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111015918/https://myanmar.mmtimes.com/restaurant-reviews/114715.html|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=The Myanmar Times}}

Versions of mohinga from the Irrawaddy delta include:

• Bogale mohinga – cooked in a broth of fish and abundant black pepper,
• Myaungmya mohinga – cooked with three varieties of fish, namely striped snakehead, walking catfish, and Hamilton's carp,{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2015-12-13|title=မြောင်းမြမုန့်ဟင်းခါး|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/myaung-mya-mont-hinn-khar/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111015855/https://myfoodmyanmar.com/myaung-mya-mont-hinn-khar/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=my}}
• Pyapon mohinga,{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2018-08-13|title=ဒေသအစားအစာ တစ်ခုဖြစ်သည့် တောင်ငူမုန့်ဟင်းခါး|url=http://www.timeayeyar.com/2018/08/blog-post_747.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111020001/http://www.timeayeyar.com/2018/08/blog-post_747.html|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=TimeAyeyar|language=my}}
• Pathein mohinga,
• Yangon mohinga – cooked in a broth of catfish, chickpeas, and peanuts).{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2015-12-29|title=ရန်ကုန် မုန့်ဟင်းခါး|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/yangon-mont-hin-ga/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111045029/https://myfoodmyanmar.com/yangon-mont-hin-ga/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=my}}

Versions of mohinga from the Bago Region include:

• Hinthada mohinga – cooked with hilsa in lieu of catfish,{{Cite web|last=San San Oo|date=2017-07-25|title=ဟင်္သာတမုန့်ဟင်းခါး|url=http://www.foodmagazinemyanmar.com/contributors/ဟသၤာတမုန္႔ဟင္းခါး/|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181006073848/http://www.foodmagazinemyanmar.com/contributors/%E1%80%9F%E1%80%9E%E1%81%A4%E1%80%AC%E1%80%90%E1%80%99%E1%80%AF%E1%80%94%E1%80%B9%E1%82%94%E1%80%9F%E1%80%84%E1%80%B9%E1%80%B8%E1%80%81%E1%80%AB%E1%80%B8/|archive-date=2018-10-06|access-date=|website=FOOD Magazine Myanmar|language=my}}
• Madauk mohinga – cooked with pickled shrimp, and served with raw tomatoes,{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2016-04-05|title=မဒေါက် မုန့်ဟင်းခါး|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/ma-dout-mont-hinn-khar/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111043313/https://myfoodmyanmar.com/ma-dout-mont-hinn-khar/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=my}}
• Nyaunglebin and Pyuntaza mohinga – cooked with pickled fish, served with pickled jujube,{{Cite web|last=လှမြိုင်|date=2019-08-06|title=မုန့်ဟင်းခါး ဋီကာ (ဒါဖတ်ပြီးမှ မုန့်ဟင်းခါး စားပါ)|url=http://www.lwinpyin.com/2019/08/mote-hin-kar-about-q.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111023206/http://www.lwinpyin.com/2019/08/mote-hin-kar-about-q.html|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=Lwin Pyin News|language=my}}
• Taungoo mohinga – served in a thinner broth more akin to a dry noodle salad, with raw tomatoes, chopped green beans, and a side of pickled white jujubes.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2016-03-08|title=တောင်ငူ မုန့်ဟင်းခါး ရေကျဲ|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/taunggu-mont-hinn-khar-2/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111030447/https://myfoodmyanmar.com/taunggu-mont-hinn-khar-2/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=my}}

Versions of mohinga from Southern and Eastern Myanmar include:

• Dawei mohinga – similar to conventional mohinga, with black pepper in lieu of paprika,{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2019-02-01|title=မုန့်ဟင်းခါးချက်နည်းအမျိုးမျိုး|url=https://yangonlife.com.mm/mm/article/60814|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111021027/https://yangonlife.com.mm/mm/article/60814|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=Yangon Life|language=my}}
• Kayin mohinga – served in one of two broths (sweet or spicy), served with raw tomatoes, bean sprouts, green beans, and mint in lieu of coriander,{{Cite web|last=မြင့်ဦးသာ|date=2017-07-25|title=ကရင်မုန့်ဟင်းခါး၊ ကရင်ငါးပေါင်းထုပ်၊ ဘားအံ၊ ကရင်ပြည်နယ်ခရီးစဉ်|url=https://www.foodmagazinemyanmar.com/food/ကရင္မုန္႔ဟင္းခါး၊-ကရင္င/|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201118054637/https://www.foodmagazinemyanmar.com/food/%e1%80%80%e1%80%9b%e1%80%84%e1%80%b9%e1%80%99%e1%80%af%e1%80%94%e1%80%b9%e1%82%94%e1%80%9f%e1%80%84%e1%80%b9%e1%80%b8%e1%80%81%e1%80%ab%e1%80%b8%e1%81%8a-%e1%80%80%e1%80%9b%e1%80%84%e1%80%b9%e1%80%84/|archive-date=2020-11-18|access-date=|website=FOOD Magazine Myanmar|language=my}}{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2016-06-02|title=ကရင် မုန့်ဟင်းခါး|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/karen-style-mont-hinn-khar/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111020740/https://myfoodmyanmar.com/karen-style-mont-hinn-khar/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=my}}
• Mawlamyine mohinga – cooked to a thinner broth consistency with boiled peas, green beans, mint, fish cakes, and jaggery,{{Cite web|last=ချိုဝတ်ရည်|date=2013-04-13|title=မော်လမြိုင် မုန့်ဟင်းခါး|url=http://www.wutyeefoodhouse.com/?p=9022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111045003/http://www.wutyeefoodhouse.com/?p=9022|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=Wutyee Food House|language=my}}{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2016-04-06|title=မော်လမြိုင် မုန့်ဟင်းခါး (သို့) မော်လမြိုင် မုန့်တီ|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/%e1%80%b1%e1%80%99%e1%80%ac%e1%80%b9%e1%80%9c%e1%81%bf%e1%80%99%e1%80%ad%e1%80%b3%e1%80%84%e1%80%b9-%e1%80%99%e1%80%af%e1%80%94%e1%80%b9%e1%82%94%e1%80%9f%e1%80%84%e1%80%b9%e1%80%b8%e1%80%81%e1%80%ab/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111043342/https://myfoodmyanmar.com/%E1%80%B1%E1%80%99%E1%80%AC%E1%80%B9%E1%80%9C%E1%81%BF%E1%80%99%E1%80%AD%E1%80%B3%E1%80%84%E1%80%B9-%E1%80%99%E1%80%AF%E1%80%94%E1%80%B9%E1%82%94%E1%80%9F%E1%80%84%E1%80%B9%E1%80%B8%E1%80%81%E1%80%AB/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=my}}
• Mon mohinga – similar to conventional mohinga, cooked without banana stems and rice flour,
• Thaton mohinga – served with Hamilton's carp, mint, green beans, bean sprouts, tomatoes, and fermented yellow rice cake patties.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2016-06-03|title=သထုံ ထမင်းဝါ (မုန့်ဟင်းခါး)|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/tha-htong-mont-hinn-khar/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111020051/https://myfoodmyanmar.com/tha-htong-mont-hinn-khar/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=my}}

In Upper Myanmar, variants of mohinga include:

• Anya mohinga – mohinga cooked in a broth of chicken, fish, and chickpea flour in lieu of toasted rice flour), which is common to Upper Myanmar towns like Monywa, Wetlet, Shwebo, Kyaukpadaung, and Myingyan,{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2016-04-04|title=ညောင်ပင်ကြီး မုန့်ဟင်းခါး (သို့) အညာ မုန့်ဟင်းခါး|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/rural-style-mont-hinn-khar/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111021134/https://myfoodmyanmar.com/rural-style-mont-hinn-khar/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=en-US}}
• In mohinga – cooked in a broth of catfish and green onions.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2016-04-04|title=အင်းမုန့်ဟင်းခါး (သို့) အင်းမုန့်တီ|url=https://myfoodmyanmar.com/inn-mont-hinn-khar/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111043743/https://myfoodmyanmar.com/inn-mont-hinn-khar/|archive-date=2021-01-11|access-date=2021-01-09|website=MyFood Myanmar|language=my}}

• Burmese cuisine
• Laksa
• List of soups
• Noodle soup

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/mar/23/20-best-noodle-recipes-fish-soup-mohinga Mohinga recipe] from Mandalay: Recipes & Tales from a Burmese Kitchen

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Category:Burmese noodle dishes

Category:Culture of Myanmar

Category:National dishes

Category:Fish and seafood soups

Category:Noodle soups